Research by Dennis Coates and Brad Humphreys published in the September 2008 issue of EJW was featured in a segment of the Home Box Office television program "Last Week Tonight with John Oliver" that criticized public subsidies for stadiums. The episode in question aired July 12, and the segment can be viewed for free online here.

]]>
Jason J Briggeman2015-07-01T04:00:02Z2015-07-02T14:04:03ZArthur Melzer on the History, Analysis, and Significance of Esotericism (Part II)tag:econjwatch.org,2015-06-28:d0a3d5b0a26ac86e5de02044779a5d09/6f80094619784bddae793de9d2385de7Arthur Melzer is the author of the landmark book Philosophy Between the Lines: The Lost History of Esoteric Writing (University of Chicago Press, 2014). A chapter of the book, “A Beginner’s Guide to Esoteric Reading,” on techniques and devices used in esoteric writing, was republished in the May 2015 issue of EJW. The conversation, however, takes up Melzer’s entire book. The conversation is long and covers most of the important ideas of the book, and is divided into two parts.

Part I (link to page with stream): Melzer provides an introduction to esotericism and its history, and devotes much time to explaining four motives or forms of esoteric writing: defensive, protective, pedagogical, and political.

Part II (stream embedded above): Melzer tells more of the history of esoteric writing, and the awareness of it; he discusses our blindness and hostility to esotericism, Leo Strauss’s thought, the big interpretations of society, philosophy, and politics that esotericism figures into, and, finally, a beginner’s guide to techniques and devices used in esoteric writing.

Download MP3 of Part IIDownload MP3 of Part IDownload combined MP3 (Parts I and II)]]>
Jason J Briggeman2015-07-01T04:00:01Z2015-07-01T01:46:34ZArthur Melzer on the History, Analysis, and Significance of Esotericism (Part I)tag:econjwatch.org,2015-06-28:d0a3d5b0a26ac86e5de02044779a5d09/38729225458b989cf6f2baaccf7db9d2Arthur Melzer is the author of the landmark book Philosophy Between the Lines: The Lost History of Esoteric Writing (University of Chicago Press, 2014). A chapter of the book, “A Beginner’s Guide to Esoteric Reading,” on techniques and devices used in esoteric writing, was republished in the May 2015 issue of EJW. The conversation, however, takes up Melzer’s entire book. The conversation is long and covers most of the important ideas of the book, and is divided into two parts.

Part I (stream embedded above): Melzer provides an introduction to esotericism and its history, and devotes much time to explaining four motives or forms of esoteric writing: defensive, protective, pedagogical, and political.

Part II (link to page with stream): Melzer tells more of the history of esoteric writing, and the awareness of it; he discusses our blindness and hostility to esotericism, Leo Strauss’s thought, the big interpretations of society, philosophy, and politics that esotericism figures into, and, finally, a beginner’s guide to techniques and devices used in esoteric writing.

Evolution, moral sentiments, and the welfare state: Many now maintain that multilevel selection created a sympathetic species with yearnings for social solidarity. Several evolutionary authors on the political left suggest that collectivist politics is an appropriate way to meet that yearning. Harrison Searles agrees on evolution and human nature, but faults them for neglecting Hayek’s charge of atavism: The modern polity and the ancestral band are worlds apart, rendering collectivist politics inappropriate and misguided. David Sloan Wilson, Robert Kadar, and Steve Roth respond, suggesting that new evolutionary paradigms promise to transcend old ideological categories.

Evidence of no problem, or a problem of no evidence? In 2009, Laura Langbein and Mark Yost published an empirical study of the relationship between same-sex marriage and social outcomes. Here Douglas Allen and Joseph Price replicate their investigation, insisting that conceptual problems and a lack of empirical power undermine any claim of evidence on outcomes. Langbein and Yost reply.

The progress of replication in economics: Maren Duvendack, Richard W. Palmer-Jones, and W. Robert Reed investigate all Web of Science-indexed economics journals with regard to matters concerning replication of research, including provision of the data and code necessary to make articles replicable and editorial openness to publishing replication studies. They explain the value of replication as well as the challenges, describe its history in economics, and report the results of their investigation, which included corresponding with journal editors.

Symposium: Classical Liberalism in Econ, by Country (Part I): Authors from around the world tell us about their country’s culture of political economy, in particular the vitality of liberalism in the original political sense, historically and currently, with special attention to professional economics as practiced in academia, think tanks, and intellectual networks.